© ZEPHYR/SPL
© ZEPHYR/SPL

Researchers alleviate cancer drug effects

The Wihuri Research Institute (WRI) and the University of Helsinki, Finland, say gene therapy to stimulate blood vessel growth in the heart could alleviate the harmful effects of a cancer drug.

Cardiac atrophy and body wasting is caused by doxorubicin treatment cancer therapy, which is commonly used in a variety of cancers. The researchers found that in a mouse’s heart, doxorubicin leads to blood vessel rarefaction, which was prevented by treatment with gene therapy using the VEGF-B growth factor.

As advances in cancer treatment decrease the number of deaths faced by cancer patients, doxorubicin-induced heart problems have become an increasing problem.

The new findings give hope that in the future the heart could be protected by gene therapy, allowing more thorough cytostatic cancer treatment.

Author of the study Dr Markus Räsänen said: “Thus, the cancer itself would be treated more effectively and the adverse effects could be avoided.”

Study supervisor Dr Riikka Kivelä added: “Doxorubicin, a cytostatic agent of the anthracycline class, which was used in this study, has been a target of intensive research in the scientific world for a long time, and its role has been described in thousands of research articles. This research article is the first one where blood vessel-directed therapy has a clear protective effect against the doxorubicin toxicity.”

Räsänen said: “Our findings show that, especially the endothelial cells, which form the inner surface of the vessels in the heart, have an essential role in the protection against the cardiotoxicity. More preclinical studies are needed though for the development of VEGF-B gene therapy for cardiac protection in patients.”

The results were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Funding was provided by the WRI, the Academy of Finland, the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research, the Finnish Cancer Foundation, and the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.